Carnor Jax/Kir Kanos - TAC - Comic Packs (No. 01)

Trained in the deadly, secret art of echani and fanatically devoted to the Emperor, the Royal Guard from which these two men rose was the most feared group of warriors in the Empire. Treacherous usurper of the Imperial throne, Carnor Jax betrayed his brothers in the Guard and defiled the memory of the Emperor, earning him the undying hatred of Kir Kanos. Kanos, devoted to the codes of the New Order and Emperor Palpatine, embarked on a vendetta that rocked the shattered Empire to its foundations. Though Jax had trained himself in the dark side of the Force, his power was not enough to stay the burning vengeance of Kanos, at whose hand he met his death.

Ah, the Carnor Jax/Kir Kanos Comic Packs set is the one that started it all, right? Wrong. How soon we forget that Comic Packs were actually introduced during the Shadows Of The Empire toy line in 1996. This format was quickly embraced by collectors and we all wondered when more would come. They didn’t until almost a decade later. The format hasn’t really changed since its introduction in 1996, but almost a decade since the first two has brought the collecting community better quality figures, more interesting comic stories and a revitalized medium in which lovers of the Expanded Universe could have their cake and eat it too. Entertainment Earth was the lucky e-tailer that was selected to reintroduce the Star Wars collecting community to the Comic Packs line and most of us couldn’t wait until the set finally got released. Entertainment Earth mercilessly teased us who would be in the set. (This is something they always do to annoy Star Wars collectors.)

In an interesting move, Hasbro thought that the Crimson Empire comics would be the best EU source jumping off point. We’re not so sure if they started it off the right way despite our own personal opinions on this, the set sold very well. It sold so well that Hasbro saw it fit to reissue it as a general release Comic Packs set (with a few revisions) in a revision wave too. Both Carnor Jax and Kir Kanos are based off of the 2005 ROTS Royal Guard (III 23) figure. This time Hasbro tooled an all-new torso, forearms and gave each figure an all-new head sculpts. The head sculpts are excellent and contain a surprising amount of detail up to including some nasty battle scars and distinct likenesses. The inclusion of removable Royal Guard helmets is very cool here and the fit nicely over the figures’ heads while remaining perfectly to scale and don’t look bulky or large. In all honesty, there is so much aggressive new tooling that these figure essentially look all-new.

Each figure comes with a blaster pistol and they can be stored in the right leg hip holster (just like the 2005 Revenge Of The Sith figures). And then both crimson guards come with a battle staff that fits just “OK” in their respective hands. Because these figures have swivel-jointed elbows, posing the battle-staffs in their hands is a little trying, but with some patience you can make it work. Carnor Jax has a very nice black cape that is woven from a quality material. But Kir Kanos’ cape is made from a very shiny red fiber that looks much too sterling for our liking. As we have previously mentioned, this set was rereleased at mass retail with lone notable change. The visors on both helmets was changed to clear on this version of this Comic Packs set. So it’s quite fair to say that Entertainment Earth has complete exclusivity to this specific version (with the darker visors). This set is honestly quite good. The figures aren’t perfect. They lean and could use more articulation. But it’s a great (re)start nonetheless!